Jury confirms SCO doesn't own Unix

 

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 31 Mar 2010 at 09:23

SCO has suffered a potentially fatal blow in its epic legal battle with Novell, after a jury ruled that Novell still owned the copyrights to the Unix operating system.

The two companies have been fighting it out for six years, after SCO sued IBM and then Novell for infringing its Unix SVRX copyrights. The company demanded royalties for every license sold by the companies after Novell sold it the Unix source code back in 1995.

Obviously, we're disappointed in the jury's decision. We were confident in the case, but there's some important claims remaining to be decided by a judge

SCO argued that a 1996 amendment to the deal also transferred the Unix copyright, a point denied by Novell, which argued that it held onto the copyrights in order to collect royalties on legacy Unix licenses.

Back in 2008, a judge ruled in favour of Novell, ordering SCO to cough up $2.5 million in royalties it had falsely collected from partners including Sun, plus interest, which ran to an extra $900,000.

However, an appeals court overruled the decision, claiming the matter could only be settled by a jury trial. But even the jury's decision may not be enough to finally put the case to bed.

"Obviously, we're disappointed in the jury's decision," said SCO Stuart Singer. "We were confident in the case, but there's some important claims remaining to be decided by a judge."

SCO now plans to ask the courts to award the copyrights to SCO. "It's a setback, but it's not over," added Singer.

However, that couldn't dampen Novell's jubilation. "Novell is very pleased with the jury's decision confirming Novell's ownership of the Unix copyrights, which SCO had asserted to own in its attack on Linux," said the company.

"Novell remains committed to promoting Linux, including by defending Linux on the intellectual property front," it concluded.